News Releases

Lander graduate receives assignment to Air War College

June 18, 2012

U.S. Army Lt. Col. Warren Bacote, center, a Lander University graduate, is escorted to a change of command ceremony at Fort Devens, Mass., where he served as garrison commander for nearly five years. His escorts included the incoming garrison commander, Lt. Col. Steve Egan (left), and Col. Patrick Slowey, Army Support Activity commander at Fort Dix, N.J. Bacote has been assigned to an academic program at the Air War College in Montgomery, Ala. (Photo courtesy of Nashoba Publishing, Devens, Mass./Mary Arata)

Lander University graduate Lt. Col. Warren Bacote was honored at a change of command ceremony on June 12 at Fort Devens, Mass., where he served as garrison commander for nearly five years. He has been reassigned to the Air War College (AWC) at Maxwell A.F.B., in Montgomery, Ala., where he will be one of 26 U.S. Army representatives in the college's class of 2013.

AWC is the senior Air Force professional military school, which prepares students from all U.S. military services, federal agencies and 45 nations to lead in the strategic environment, emphasizing the employment of airpower in joint operations.

Bacote graduated from Lander in 1989 with a degree in political science. He graduated from Lander's Reserve Officer Training Corps program and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Reserve. He has a master's degree in security management from American Military University, and he has also graduated from several other military schools and programs.

While in the Army reserves, he was a member of the South Carolina Highway Patrol in traffic law enforcement and later in the security detail assigned to governors Beasley and Hodges.

He and his wife, Andrena, are natives of Darlington. She is a graduate of South Carolina State University and is a certified speech pathologist.

As garrison commander at Fort Devens, Bacote supervised quality-of-life issues and activities for 2,500 military men and women and civilian contractors.

He has been deployed to Iraq twice, serving with the 324th Military Police Battalion, and his assignments have included duties at Fort Jackson in Columbia.

Bacote said his academic experiences at Lander and in the university's ROTC program prepared him well for his military duties, adding "ROTC is one of the great training grounds for military officers and the backbone for military training."

At the change of command ceremony, Major General William Razz Waff, commander of the 99th Regional Support Group Command, praised Bacote for an outstanding job at Fort Devens. He told the incoming garrison commander Lt. Col. Steven Egan that he is following a commander who has done "an absolutely first-class job."

Bacote has received many military decorations during his more than 23-year Army reserve and active duty career. They include the Bronze Star Medal, Meritorious Service Medal, Army Commendation Medal with two oak leaf clusters, Army Achievement Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal and the parachutist badge.